Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006: Quality Matters
Chatbot

Brian the Brain: IWMW's very own Chatbot

This year the Institutional Web Management Workshop Web site is testing a
chatbot courtesy of DADENLIMITED,
one of this year's commercial sponsors.

Note

Please note that the Chatbot was available for the IWMW 2006 event and for a period
afterward. This service has now been discontinued.

Background

Chatbots are software applications designed to provide a conversational
speech based interface to Web sites and services. They employ various linguistic
and artificial intelligence methods to create the illusion of a two-way conversation.
Use of chatbots on commercial Web sites has increased over the last few years
but the educational sector has yet to make use of this technology on
institutional Web sites. A brief history of chatbots is available from
Wikipedia. Some of the best known
chatbots in current use include
Anna on the Ikea Web site,
Helen,
the Virtual Mortgage Assistant on the Yorkshire Building society Web site,
jabberwacky and the
ACS chatbots.

Brian

The Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006 chatbot is called
Brian (named after Brian Kelly, chair of the first nine
of the workshops!). You will need
a Macromedia Flash plug-in
on your PC to view the chatbot, which has been primed with information on the
Institutional Web Management Workshop, UKOLN and the city of Bath.

If you have any further questions about the technology involved in the use of
a chatbot the DADENLIMITED FAQ is very useful.

Once Brian is on the screen you can ask him questions. You might
want to ask some questions about the workshop like "Where will the workshop be?" and
"Who will be presenting at the workshop?" or more important questions like
"What are the best pubs in Bath?". A few thoughts/questions to bear in mind when trying
out the chatbot might be: